Greece: Fascists in the City of Patras (Update1)

The bloggers at London Occupied report that at least 5,000 people took the streets for the demonstration called by the university occupation, and in response to the recent coordinated attacks by the police and fascists. An eyewitness said that it was “one of the most beautiful demonstrations I’ve ever been to. The atmosphere was simply amazing, an unprecedented amount of people on the streets … The riot police are still on the street, together with the hordes of their undercovers, but the demonstrators made them look so much weaker today”.

The people were concentrated at the Plaza of Olga. At the Plaza, the youth and the shopkeepers conversed and socialized as allies. Many of the shopkeepers informed the students of seeing Onnedites* (approximately 50), who had begun to assemble outside of their shops yesterday afternoon in Patras; they arrived by train from other cities. There is no damage to the local shops.

Small shopkeepers-farmers, who were selling their vegetables in Patras, aggressively beat a municipal policeman. He began to display indignation and admitted to having sympathy for the plight to the ‘common man’. The shopkeepers-farmers work on the fields in the cold, and when they come to sell their goods (at lower prices than the supermarkets), the state demands that they obtain a vendor’s license. The state takes its loot from the Bulgarian farmers then proceeds to demand taxes and licensing from the toilers of the soil.